Ofcom slaps ITV over Arma 2 Gaddafi gaffe

By Tom Phillips Published 23 January, 2012

A "significant breach of audience trust".

Broadcasting standards agency Ofcom has slammed ITV for mistakenly labelling a clip of video game Arma 2 as real-life footage of a Libya-funded IRA attack.

ITV included the YouTube video of tactical shooter Arma 2 in a documentary on the now-deposed Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, shown in September last year.

The mistake constituted a "significant breach of audience trust," Ofcom ruled, "particularly in the context of a public service broadcaster."

"It is not sufficient for a broadcaster or programme maker to rely on footage provided by a third-party source, on the basis that that source had previously supplied other broadcasters with archive footage, and fail to confirm the details of archive film provided," Ofcom's statement reads (as reported by Tech Radar).

"The viewers of this serious current affairs programme were misled as to the nature of the material they were watching. In the circumstances, this represented a significant breach of audience trust, particularly in the context of a public service broadcaster.

"As such, Ofcom considered the programme to be materially misleading, in breach of Rule 2.2. Ofcom was particularly concerned by this compliance failure by ITV."

But Ofcom appeared to rule out any form of penalty for the broadcaster, simply concluding: "We do not expect any issues of a similar nature to arise in future."

At the time, ITV blamed the mistake on "an unfortunate case of human error". The broadcaster apologised, but not before Ofcom had received a number of complaints.

Arma developer Bohemia Interactive told Eurogamer it did not expect the controversy to affect sales of the game, and confirmed forthcoming sequel Arma 3 will make no mention or Libya or Gaddafi.

Picture of Tom.

About Tom Phillips

Tom joined Eurogamer in 2010 and has quickly made his mark writing news and columns and coming up with puntastic straplines. Questionable beard. @TomPhillips151 on Twitter.

Read more articles from Tom by visiting the Tom Phillips archive page.

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Comments (25) Latest comment 4 months ago

Comments for this article are now closed, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Kami #1 4 months ago

    "Serious current affairs programme".

    Snrk. Must... not... laugh...

  • simsini #2 4 months ago

    No 'arma' done then.

  • Golgo #3 4 months ago

    Gaddafi "now deposed"? You could say that.

  • bobfish09 #4 4 months ago

    I suspect that Ofcom were too busy laughing that they could mistake it for real life footage to bother fining them... or maybe they took pity on them for it :)

  • Kami #5 4 months ago

    If I remember correctly, wasn't this the shows first airing?

    When your first show of a "serious current affairs" programme makes this kind of blunder, you're in more than a spot of bother.

    At least we can see the funny side. I'm sure ITV didn't.
    Edited by Kami at 23/01/12 @ 14:35

  • Zaiz #6 4 months ago

    I wonder how you could get tricked by that. Before the chopper gets shot down, the truck -bounces-.

  • dennett316 #7 4 months ago

    I don't get how anyone could think that footage was real...it was clearly artificial looking. Surely even someone who knows nothing about games could see there was something up with that footage?
    I can't wait for their expose on pollution mutating British wildlife, showing footage of Sonic the Hedgehog to illustrate the super speed mutation they witnessed.

  • bobfish09 #8 4 months ago

    @dennett316 I suspect that those who knew what the footage was suppose to be didn't watch, only the editors, who were unlikely to know what the piece was, only that it had to be cut in at that point.

  • DreadedWalrus #9 4 months ago

    @Golgo Perhaps Tom meant decomposed?

  • Dave52 #10 4 months ago

    "But Ofcom appeared to rule out any form of penalty for the broadcaster"

    Why...? They should be nailed to the wall for this. It was a blatant attempt to fool the audience into accepting the upcoming attacks on Libya. This is not the first time the mainstream media has lied for a government agenda and it won't be the last. And this is what SOPA is all about. If it wasn't for the freedom of the internet an alternative view would not be available to us, just government sanctioned propaganda from the controlled news agencies.

  • Whizzo #11 4 months ago

    The no fly zone started in March, the programme aired in September. If that was a government attempt to convince the public to support it they were a bit late in showing the programme.

  • Dave52 #12 4 months ago

    @Whizzo - Gaddafi was killed on 20th October.

  • TarickStonefire #13 4 months ago

    That cockup made me snort with derision. What an stupid mistake to make. How could it possibly have happened, even by mistake?

  • TarickStonefire #14 4 months ago

    @dennett316 "I don't get how anyone could think that footage was real...it was clearly artificial looking."

    Not so sure about that - if you're told it's fuzzy mobile footage from several years ago and that's all you know about it and you're not a gamer then it's quite possible to believe it. I think that's why it's being called a breach of trust as we trust that what we're shown is really what we're told it is.

  • TarickStonefire #15 4 months ago

    @Dave52 " They should be nailed to the wall for this. It was a blatant attempt to fool the audience into accepting the upcoming attacks on Libya."

    I considered the conspiracy theory ideas behind why it happened but in the end they seemed a bit too farfetched, it just seems like a producer wanted war footage and some researcher provided that video from YouTube because they're an idiot, and the producer believed it.

    But someone somewhere got it from YouTube where it's clearly ID'd as a game video. Whoever downloaded it first must have got in some trouble.

  • orangpelupa #16 4 months ago

    ITV should slap a "This is a simulated scene" wording on that footage...
    Edited by orangpelupa at 23/01/12 @ 15:57

  • Whizzo #17 4 months ago

    @Dave52 so what? The country had been being bombed for months.

  • WadiumArcadium #18 4 months ago

    Slapping ITV? Sounds like fun.

  • Dave52 #19 4 months ago

    @Whizzo - Yes, but it's all about justification. Anyone with any doubts about our involvement in Libya would've watch that documentary. It's all propaganda. ITV knew that the footage wasn't real but used it because it looked dramatic. A vast majority of the audience would have accepted it as fact.

  • FWB #20 4 months ago

    ITV... what do you respect. I can't remember the last time I watched anything on that channel. I haven't been deliberately avoiding it, it just really is full of shit.

  • Badassbab #21 4 months ago

    ITV is basically the channel of shit. Think about all the dumb rubbish they release it's no wonder China, India, Brazil et al are going to or already have overtaken us economically when we make multi millionaires out of complete and utter idiots. What inspiration for our youths eh?

  • HeNiCiDe1988 #22 4 months ago

    ahahhahah trust it to be ITV to do something like this hope they get smacked well hard by ofcom claiming it actually being real footage.

  • uninspiredcup #23 4 months ago

    Arma is the last tactical shooter left. Rest dumbed down for consoles, lame action hollywoody games.

  • Lateralus2001 #24 4 months ago

    @TarickStonefire

    This. I have been involved in the production of documentaries and this is proably what happened.


    Often what you see on screen is there to represent the truth but not the actual truth.

    If for example I was making a documentary about homelessness, I would need footage of some homeless people. If at some stage in editing we realised we needed more footage of the homeless for cutaways, but were unable to get a production crew out quickly and had little time you could get one of the production crew to dress up like he/she is homeless on the streets and shoot that.

    In this case it is a deception of sorts, but it would not make the content of the programme any less true IMO, as long as your not claiming there are a homeless people in an area where there are not.

    This sort of thing happens in television all the time, and the prodcuers need to make a moral decision of what is acceptable quickly and run with it.

    I haven't seen the programme (I would rather get my balls eaten by a dog than watch ITV)but it seems the producers made the wrong decision here.

  • Jorendo #25 4 months ago

    I keep having to laugh about this. The video shows so many things that its fake. Yet they believed it was real? From the start you can see its a game to begin with. Then there is the white car who drives in a silly way and far from realistic, there is the bouncing truck as others reported, the flames look fake (im a huge arma 2 fan but somethings aren't that pretty in the game), the way people jump out of the helicopter and a helicopter crew doesn't even has parachutes with them so why do we see 3 people jump out with parachutes?